


it's always you

by Quillium



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Romance, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: There’s a stranger in front of her room with a guitar in hand, singing.Pepper drags a hand over her face and sighs, “Tell Tony that when I said that it would be nice to be seduced by a man with a guitar, I meant him, not someone he hired.”





	it's always you

**Author's Note:**

> A little thing I wrote after seeing the Endgame trailer.

She’s brilliant, even the first day that he meets her, not that Tony knows it yet. But Pepper knows it, and it shows, in the fire in her eyes and the purpose in her step and the way she refuses to be deterred, crisply listing out his duties for the day when he flirts with her.

She’s pretty, he thinks, and not much beyond that at the time, because at the time he doesn’t really know Pepper and he has some growing to do, still.

“Your hair is the most beautiful colour I’ve ever seen,” he says, resting his chin on his hands as she comes to talk to him in his lab, “Do you dye it?”

“You have a meeting with the board in two hours,” she says, and as she walks out, tosses over her shoulder, “It wouldn’t be a good colour on you, Mr. Stark.”

She knows that he’s trying to flirt, and he knows that she knows, but what can he say? He likes that about her, that she jokes with him like that.

She doesn’t like him at first, which is okay, because at first he’s an asshole, yeah, he’ll admit it.

He likes her from the get-go, though, even if he doesn’t fully understand how wonderful she is.

Pepper is on a one-woman mission to get done everything that needs to be done, with some time to spare.

Tony is determined to sneak past her and go drinking.

They compromise, in the end.

That is to say: Pepper gets what she wants and Tony pouts. This sets the scene for years to come.

He doesn’t fall in love with her, per say, because Tony is a firm believe that love is something you walk into, consciously, until loving someone is a part of you just like the colour of your hair, but he likes her, and she keeps presenting all these reasons to love her and.

Tony’s life is made of many before and after shots, and he wants Pepper to be a constant.

* * *

He realizes how much he loves her when he wakes to her working on a report.

She isn’t fully ready to be up yet, he knows, still in her pyjamas, bed head a total mess, bleary-eyed, and watching the way the morning sun lights her hair, the way she chews on the corner of her mouth while she thinks, the way she types up her report quickly, like she refuses to second guess herself, it strikes him how much he loves her.

“Hey, beautiful,” he says, sitting up, grinning at her, and she rolls her eyes at him. “That this month’s report?”

“Just getting a head start,” Pepper says, running her fingers through his hair, “I mean, we’re already three weeks in.”

“A week to go,” he kisses the back of her hand, “Come on, you’re doing good with work now that you’ve got that new assistant, right?”

“Not an excuse to slack on work,” she raises an eyebrow.

“Mm, it’s not _slacking_ ,” he pops up and kisses the tip of her nose, “It’s work/life balance. Very important.”

She hums and lifts her chin so that they’re properly kissing, “I suppose that I could be convinced,” she says lightly, and he laughs against the corner of her lips.

“I’m very good at convincing people to do things.”

“No,” she snickers, “You’re terrible at dealing with people.” Tony pulls back to pout at her, and she curls her fingers around his cheeks, smiling fondly. “But maybe I don’t need much convincing. I can make my own decisions, you know. You just need to present the options.”

“I’m not making a slideshow to convince you to take a day off,” Tony scrunches up his nose.

Pepper laughs and closes her laptop, puts it on the bedside table, and then wraps her arms around the back of Tony’s neck. “That would be nice,” she hums.

“But unnecessary?” Tony asks hopefully,

She pulls him in for another kiss, and Tony, somewhere along the way, has fallen head over heels for her.

* * *

Tony always thought that love was just something that sort of happened. Like you couldn’t quite control it. And it is, sorta.

But to maintain love, he learns, just feelings isn’t enough.

He stays up late to help Pepper with reports. He makes her tea when she’s stressed.

“What do you want?” he asks, “I’ll give it to you.”

And she doesn’t want grand, big gestures. She wants little things. She just wants him to show that he loves her. That’s all.

It’s the hardest thing he’s ever learned to do.

It’s a conscious effort. To look at her and try to think of how he can help her, and then follow through. To remember dates and times and write sticky notes and set alarms because he has to show her that he cares. To go to the grocery store and not buy something that she’s allergic to because that’s insensitive and Tony doesn’t want to be the insensitive ex, he wants to be the caring SO.

So he works. And she—she’s worth it all.

She does it, too, she’s so fucking perfect like that. She organizes everything for him, she sets reminders for him, heck, she buys him a _planner_ and a _calendar_ and when he demands what he’ll do with them she says “think of it like a manual JARVIS that you have to fill in and read yourself” and pushes at his chest and she _understands_ , so well, the way that he _thinks_.

He chooses to love her, so she chooses to love him because she’s smart enough not to waste her time trying to love someone who keeps failing her and is unwilling to change.

“So when people like Mr. Darcy,” Tony says, blinking at the TV screen, “It’s _not_ just because he’s hot?”

“No,” she laughs, “It’s because he’s willing to work to change to be a better man for Elizabeth. Because love—good love—is when you work together to better yourselves. It’s not a one-sided thing, Tony.”

“Are you sure?” he squints at her, “I feel like you’re doing all the work. You’re too good for me.”

“That I am,” she agrees, and kisses his chin, “Better work harder.”

She means it as a joke, but they both know it’s true, so, yeah, of course Tony works harder. She doesn’t require it, but he wants to do it because when he does little things it makes her smile and he likes it when she smiles because he’s kind of dumbly head-over-heels for her like that.

She buys him blueberries and he goes over his schedule with her and they make it work.

Tony used to think love just happened.

It doesn’t.

And that’s what makes it so special.

* * *

He didn’t plan the engagement. Neither of them did. Sure, there was talk, but he was—he was Iron Man. He was—his life was—he couldn’t give her enough, and they both knew that. But still, they made it work. They made _dating_ work. He doesn’t know about marriage.

He’s still not sure.

“I want it to be permanent,” he says, pressing her knuckles against his lips, “I want this— _us_ —to be permanent.”

“I do, too,” she says, quietly, her free hand cupped against his cheek. “But this—Iron Man—that won’t let it happen.”

“Then I won’t be Iron Man,” he says, “I’ll focus on the company.”

She gives him a searching look, and then, quietly, “Are you willing to do that?”

“Yes,” he kisses the back of her hand, “Yes.”

“I don’t want to be the reason that you’re bitter, ten years from now,” she presses her forehead against his, “I don’t want to pull you away from what you think is important.”

“You’re the most important thing to me,” he moves forward to kiss her and she kisses him back for a while but doesn’t let them lose focus. Another reason (out of millions) that he loves her.

“I just don’t think that I want to deal with how it’ll feel to lose you,” she says, “to be married to you and lose you because you were off being some sort of hero.”

“I won’t be,” he repeats.

She pulls back and taps the arc reactor, “Then why do you still have _this_?”

“It’s for—just in case,” he says.

“Just in case,” Pepper repeats flatly.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Tony says.

Pepper shakes her head and lowers her eyes.

Tony squeezes her hands and sighs.

* * *

It’s the only thing they can’t find some way to compromise on.

Tony is terrified that without the arc reactor, something like New York will happen and it’ll have a bad ending this time, because _he_ wasn’t there, because he could have helped but he _didn’t_ because he was selfish and chose peace over preparedness.

Pepper is terrified that Tony sees them as temporary, that his focus will be on Iron Man and one day he’ll fade completely, until she’s standing over his grave and all that she can think about is that she saw this coming. That it was inevitable.

(She doesn’t want to see death as something inevitable.)

“I don’t want that, either,” Tony says, desperately, hands hovering over her shoulders like he isn’t sure if it’s okay to touch her, “I just—I need to be ready.”

“You _don’t_ , Tony,” she says wearily, “Give the suit to someone else. Someone who’s just as capable.”

His jaw locks, “Who? Rhodey already has one. I can’t give it to you or Happy.”

“Give it to the government, then.”

“I made that mistake once,” he says, rubbing his arms, “I can’t do that again.”

She bows her head, and she knows, she understands, but she hates it all the same. “You’re so obsessed with _what-ifs_ that you can’t even focus on the now.”

“If I’m not ready, then how will we defend ourselves?”

“You’re already prepared! This, now, it’s just—desperation,” He looks away and she says, “Why won’t you give it to me?”

“You know why.”

“Then why should I let you keep the suit?”

“I’m Iron Man, Pepps. That’s—that’s not going to change.”

She laces her fingers through his and says, “Build a suit for me, too, then.”

He stares at their hands, mouth half open, eyes wide, and doesn’t answer.

* * *

Moments between them:

He tucks a flower behind her hair and grins, “Hello, Mrs. Stark.”

She kisses his cheek, “Morning, Mr. Potts.”

He laughs at her, and she laughs at him.

* * *

“What if you wear a tux?” Tony asks as they peer at the catalogues for the wedding dresses, “It’d be so much easier.”

“If I wear a tux,” Pepper says, smiling at Tony, “All my skin is covered.”

“That’s alright,” Tony says, shifting, “If it makes you comfortable.”

She laughs and kisses him, “You have a hidden motive.”

He groans into the kiss, “Aren’t you tired of all this shopping?”

“Aren’t you tired of trying to find the perfect location?”

“That’s—that’s different. It’s our wedding location! It’s gotta be _perfect_. We should be able to afford to go there for anniversaries, but it should be special, not somewhere we go all the time, and it—“

She kisses him again, and when she pulls back, he sighs.

“Alright, fine. What about the dress with the mermaid skirt?”

“Which one?”

He adopts a look of horror, “There’s more than one with a mermaid skirt? But—“

* * *

“Maybe we could invest more in clean energy?” Tony asks, bending over, his chin brushing against Pepper’s ear.

“Maybe,” she hums, “I was thinking about working more on space. Like collaborating with NASA?”

He freezes for a moment, and then, he laughs, a bit too high-pitched, “You’re the business-y one. Sounds like a plan.”

She resists the urge to look at him and changes the subject, because she knows that if she presses, he’ll pull away, “So I was talking to financials the other day, and they’ve been working with advertising recently to—“

* * *

There’s a stranger in front of her room with a guitar in hand, singing.

She drags a hand over her face and sighs, “Tell Tony that when I said that it would be nice to be seduced by a man with a guitar, I meant _him_ , not someone he hired.”

The man with the guitar smiles awkwardly and shuffles away.

* * *

“I’ll take guitar lessons,” Tony says, determined.

“I would really rather you do your paperwork,” Pepper answers drily.

Tony, thank the heavens, does not take guitar lessons.

* * *

“We should make a pinterest board for the wedding,” Tony says. Pepper stacks her feet on his lap to keep them warm, and he pouts at her but covers her toes with a blanket all the same. “It’ll be good for us to have a consistent aesthetic.”

She groans, “Is this about the flowers? I already told you that yellow flowers were fine.”

“Yellow and white look terrible together,” he answers, “And you can’t get a yellow dress, it’ll look _terrible_. I mean,” he backtracks, “You’d look great in anything. It’s just. Yellow and white.” Shudders.

Pepper sighs at him, “Why are you so much more invested in this than I am?”

“It’s literally the most romantic thing ever, a wedding,” he pouts at her, “Aren’t you at least a _little_ excited?”

“So long as we can be together,” she says, putting a foot against his arm, laughing when he yelps about her ice cold toes, “Who cares about the fancy ceremonies? It’s what comes after the wedding that’s romantic, I think.”

He looks at her like he’s fallen in love all over again, and she smiles.

* * *

“No more surprises,” he says, grinning at her, “I should promise you.”

She smiles at him, and it’s the last time she sees him before Thanos comes.

* * *

“I’ll dream of you,” Tony says into his broken helmet, folded over, hoping desperately that Pepper was one of the half that lived, one of the half that survived. “It’s always you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended for this to be something like 6000 words, an in-depth exploration into their relationship. Then someone pointed out to me that this would require rewatching all three Iron Man movies, which as much as I'd love to do, I have not the time to. So hopefully this wasn't too rushed and you still enjoyed it?


End file.
